


Debt

by Haecceity



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Character Study, F/F, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:17:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haecceity/pseuds/Haecceity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short introspective piece set just before "Desecration"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Debt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trobadora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/gifts).



> Prompt: Cara compares her lovers -from trobadora

Cara kept many secrets. She would take most of them to her grave. She had taken most of them to her grave. That she had returned and continued not to share them was a sign of weakness she knew. She was afraid in a way Mord’Sith weren’t supposed to be afraid. If she was this afraid of what her Lord Rahl thought, she was supposed to atone.

Sometimes, in the dark of the night, she thought about what she would say but it always twisted into an apology. She might be able to apologize to Richard but he’d tell Kahlan and she’d feel the Confessor watching and judging. It was better when Kahlan let her do her part.

Sometimes in the middle of the night she woke up and she could feel Dahlia’s hand in hers. Dahlia who was so quick to hurt and so quick to cause pleasure. Dahlia who stood by her when everything else about home was stripped from her and tossed aside. Dahlia was never gentle but always careful.

Darken was brash, always ready to overwhelm her senses. His kisses made all her hair stand on end. There was nothing quite like the feeling of his smirk as they laughed together at the folly of the world that stood against them. Together, they could overcome anything.

Darken drove her forward and Dahlia stood behind her, watching her back. Darken’s long absences were filled with hard work, his and hers. He had his country to run, his projects to supervise. She had her missions and her own projects. In between, she would rest in Darken’s bed or Dahlia’s.

Darken itched for action. He wanted to be on the front lines of everything. To oversee each project, to personally negotiate each treaty, to be on hand for each magical Working was Darken’s dream. That the space/time continuum conspired to prevent him from being able to do so was a source of constant frustration. Part of it was a hatred of relying on people and part of it was a desire to see, learn, and know.

Dahlia flourished in the confinement that chafed at Darken and the routine that bored Cara. After Dahlia was assigned to her Temple, she quickly rose in the ranks. She soared and Cara felt so very proud of her. Dahlia led step by step in a way that made Darken look reckless. 

Cara had let Richard think that one teary eyed moment in the future had been for Triana. To a point, it had been. But as they traveled to the People’s Palace, she had thought again and again of Dahlia’s body lying in her Temple, Dahlia facing down some monstrous Confessor King without her, Dahlia thinking Cara was dead, Dahlia surrounded by enemies without Cara at her back. Dahlia dying because of Darken’s short sighted, reckless pursuit of the power of Confession.

The choice was simple when she saw that. She could live with the secret of having killed Darken. Later, she could live with the scorn, pity, and suspicion of her traveling companions. She could live with being outcast and shorn of her place. In her bones, she felt that Richard would one day become Lord Rahl and put her back in her rightful place. In the meantime, she could keep moving forward.

Because Dahlia was alive.

Beautiful Dahlia who had cried in the dark for her father. Dahlia who had had the same cuts on her heart that Cara had had. The woman Cara turned to for comfort. The only one Cara would have explained everything to if Triana hadn’t ruined everything. That had been her plan. Get to the People’s Palace so the Lords and Generals couldn’t take it, contact Dahlia, find her son, and proceed from there.

Now she was reluctant to draw attention to her son. Reluctant to tell Richard and Kahlan and Zedd about Dahlia. Kahlan believed in true love. She believed she’d found it with Richard. Cara had almost been able to taste how much Kahlan had wanted Cara to find love with Leo. 

Once in a while, Cara thought about being regent for her son, with Dahlia at her side. She would let Richard live. Give the Mother Confessor the concessions she wanted. But of course Darken wouldn’t let a little thing like death prevent him from ruining that plan. And that was why she loved him. Always pushing her beyond what she thought she could accomplish. She would never have thought she would help the Seeker return from the Old World, break an ancient curse on a tribe of pacifists, or face a possible incarnation of the Creator Herself.

She owed Darken more than she could say. To anyone.

Cara didn’t owe Dahlia a thing except everything she had and was. Dahlia owed her the same. Cara had repaid that debt the only way she could.


End file.
